


Letters

by makesoneheavenly



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, John goes away, Letters, M/M, Teeny bit of swearing, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2014-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-18 05:53:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1417618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makesoneheavenly/pseuds/makesoneheavenly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Promise you will write."<br/>"I will, don't worry."</p>
<p>John has gone away and Sherlock doesn't know what to say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letters

"Promise you will write", he had demanded, a moment that seemed like a lifetime ago.

"I will, don't worry", had been Sherlocks lame reply to the request.

"I'm serious Sherlock. I'm expecting a letter at least once a week", John had quietly murmured into his ear as he pulled him down for a quick embrace before trotting off past the gates and deserting him in the suddenly lonely airport.

* * *

 

  ~~ _Dear John_~~

"No. Too stereotypical, sound like an infatuated girl."

~~_Hello John_ ~~

"No. No. No. All wrong we aren't meeting up for coffee for gods sake..."

~~_I miss you_ ~~

"Great, a clingy, obsessed, consulting detective, what every person wants for a partner."

Sherlock Holmes groaned, dropping his head into his hands, his nimble fingers twining and tugging through his thick black locks in pure frustration. Never in all of his life had he experienced such crippling speechlessness especially when he had so much that he wanted to explain. No matter how hard he tried, the words just wouldn't tie together in the perfection he desired, what he wanted to say were thoughts that any currently existing phrases couldn't fathom to describe. And boy did that cause him frustration.   
The thick, sturdy, creamy paper sitting at his elbow remained blank, just as it had been all afternoon, as the identical sheets filled with slashed out sentences grew higher and higher around it.  
Why did all of this sentimental stuff have to be so constantly difficult? He just wanted to write down some rubbish, send it off and hear from John? He just had to write down words right?

~~_You missed a great case._ ~~

"Why would John care?" He would have been too busy trying to not get blasted into smithereens to bother about the work back home. Sherlock abruptly paused at the possibility of this comical absent minded thought becoming a terrifying reality. He glared down at the paper, still caught up between what he wanted to say and what he classified as appropriate to say.

"How do ordinary people do it", Sherlock mused to himself, though the questions directed at his own brain usually came back with answers, in this situation his mind was being particularly stubborn and was refusing to give up any useful information, not that it contained any on letter writing etiquette. Even an idiot like Anderson could fucking write a letter and his brain was bordering on underdeveloped, and yet Holmes was stumped completely, the scribbles his numb hands marked upon the pages making so little sense. In every other situation his mind acted appropriately, even impressively but now he was drawing a complete blank, something that had never occurred prior to this. Sherlock lashed out suddenly his arm swinging out and viciously knocking down the empty glass nearby which promptly shattered on the hard floor, and sending several papers fluttering down with it.

Sherlock clawed at his face with his fingertips and found himself staring intently through his fingers at the table top where he was seated, in desperate longing that perhaps the surface would reveal to him the words that held everything that he needed to say, as at the current moment his mind was temporarily inept of producing anything decent. He sat in complete stillness, akin to a marbled statue in the shadowed light, but alas the inanimate object remained solid and dead, as did any chances that Sherlock had of finishing(or rather starting) this letter tonight.

Tonight! Sherlock glanced at quickly up at the clock and realised that day had progressed to dusk long ago without so much as a warning for his distracted conscious mind. Which meant that he had been seated and struggling for the past four hours and had hardly noticed, since when did anything evade the great Sherlock Holmes' attention. What on Earth was happening! Maybe his skills at deduction were slowly disintegrating with his new found independence, basically meaning that now he was busy concentrating on the boring stuff because John was not there to do it for him.

Oh John....

Since he had accepted the Army's offer to return as a medical advisor, and the offer of a substantial about of much needed cash, John had travelled away and Sherlock had begun to fully appreciate how much John had actually done for him, and how lost he had become without him. Without John no one reminded him that it was five in the morning and that he should probably go to sleep sometime soon. No one was there to chastise him for spending a whole day in his dressing gown. Mrs Hudson dropped by every now and again, tried to be John, failed at being John, quickly left with a hurried "I'll pop by soon again", and closed the door with a sad look in her eyes. And of course without the regular sexual.......release, his pent up anger and frustration were constantly getting the better of him at completely inappropriate times. The amount of times he has half-heartedly apologised to Lestrade and Molly and even Sally for losing his temper was not countable, he blamed it on lack of sleep, and stress and not enough stimulation to the mesolimbic dopamine system, but they all knew the truth.

~~_How are you?_ ~~

"Stupid, stupid question. He's in a bloody war zone, how do you think he's doing." Vivid and terrifying images suddenly flashed through his mind of John running, John screaming, John crying, John firing and John dying.... Wow, he was really starting to lose it.

Sherlock raised his pale luminous face and rested his chin on the pint of his steepled fingers, or as John had categorised it, his "I'm thinking, fuck off" pose. His bright eyes suddenly focused on the full sink, which now held a multitude of grimy cups, plates and saucers, he noted the smell but had no intention of doing anything to counteract the issue. Sherlock gaze flickered up to the dark window, and the thick layer of unattractive dust that carpeted the sill beneath it. He swivelled in his seat, his eyebrows knitting together a the observation of the rest of the apartment and the absolute catastrophic conditions it had fallen into over the past two weeks. A wave of inspiration passed over him and he quickly turned back to scribble.

_The apartment is in a right mess._

Sherlock turned off the light with a satisfied flick, a smirk plastered on his face

* * *

 

**One week later: Still no letter**

"What's up your arse?" Anderson queried, a sneer etched onto his already unpleasant features.

"Not much these day," Donovan snorted with all the grace of an elephant on a tricycle. "Didn't you hear, his fuck buddy's gone."

Sherlock drowned out their babbling, trying to concentrate on the work. Lestrade was on the other side of the room, arranging interviews of witnesses and statements, so was unable to swat off the annoying flies who were buzzing around Sherlock's ears. God if John was here he would have said something. He could perfectly picture John telling them to fuck off in that once specific tone that no one would ever dream of questioning. The corners of Sherlocks mouth twitched up at the thought as both Donovan and Anderson quieted at Lestrades approach.   
Sherlocks thoughts slowly drifted to John again, as they frequently did now. He wondered what he was doing, what he was seeing, who was he talking to, whether or not he was happy. The prospect of John being unhappy triggered Sherlock's emotions in a way he didn't understand but had learned to accept recently. These bloody emotions were really getting the better of him, but he pushed all these thoughts aside for the time being and got started on his work.

_The intruder got in-tru-da window._

Lestrades poor jokes never failed to make him cringe. Sherlock arrived home at last after hours of slaving away at the scene, basic robbery but in a room with no windows and only one door which proved to be extensively well guarded. But upon the discovery of a hollow section of false wall was it uncovered that the room had many windows, all but one which had been bricked over. With Sherlocks duty done he arrived home with a tiredness in his bones that he had never experienced before. Maybe old age was setting in early, or maybe it was loneliness.

This emotional side was really starting to get the better of him. Sherlock closed his eyes and concentrated, he had made the choice to devote the next one hour, and only the next one hour, to writing the letter. He had to send something to John, and his communication was already a week and a half over due.

What if John thought he had given up on him? What if he assumed that no letter meant no interest? What if John had found someone else? What if John have moved on and forgotten all about him?

"Don't think that", Sherlock reminded himself out loud, John would never do something like that and even if he did- no, no John would never do that to him. He needed to write something, desperately. For the first time Sherlock didn't think about what John wanted to hear, but rather concentrated on what he would actually like to write, and he knew what that was.

_Fucking Anderson is driving me crazy._

* * *

 

**Three weeks later: For Gods Sake, Write A Bloody Letter**

It was barely half past eleven when Sherlock returned home from one of the most inane cases Lestrade had ever called him to. It appeared that's the police force could not function without his deductions, which was irritating as Sherlock was being called down for practically ever case they were presented with. To keep the Detective Inspector off his back for a while, Sherlock had promised to look into some other cases, a few of which he found rather interesting, though he wouldn't dare to admit it.

Sherlock peeled off his jacket upon arrival before carefully pulling on some latex gloves from a box he had discovered under a stack of papers, he opened the refrigerator and extracted his newly acquired severed head which he placed gingerly onto the sanitised bench. This poor stiff had half of his skull smashed in, with his cranium collapsed and concaving inward, but it was the mouth that held Sherlocks interest. He produced a sachet of he freshest blood he could acquire at such short notice and leaned it against a pile of sheets before carefully smeared some of the red liquid onto the dead mans teeth with his finger, when the adequate amount had been applied, he snapped off his gloves and began the waiting game.

Sherlock was to measure the coagulation of human blood on human teeth after the re-appeal of a mean who pleaded innocence to ripping out a woman's throat with his teeth. It was quite a thrilling case, but one which had been declared fairly open and shut nearly fifteen years ago, but with the apparent murderers re-established plea of not guilty, the evidence had to also be re-established. Sherlock picked up the file he had briefly glanced at before and accidentally disturbed a large pile of sheets which abruptly fell.

_John._

The name felt like a stab wound in his side, or a pair of sharp teeth at his throat. After a week of distracting and busying himself with inconsequential matters it still wasn't enough so that he could ignore the impending task that lay over him. As Sherlock bent down and retrieved the scattered sheets his eyes danced over the words and scribbles his own hand had written desperately trying not to read them.

_Dammit...._

He didn't need to read them, he already knew what was on those papers, or rather what wasn't and it angered him to know that he had failed at one of the most mundane acts of social communication so he had completely given up on it. Something that John would sold him for upon his return. Mrs Hudson and Lestrade had been constantly inquiring about John since his departure, and Sherlocks unconvincing lies to their questions had not even fooled bloody Anderson, and this just fueled his anger into a blazing madness. So with a determination in his stomach, and Anderson's stupid sneering face in his mind, Sherlock seated himself at the table and began to write, experiment fading away in the back of his mind.

He froze for a moment, poised with hand hovering just above the table top, and then, chaos. He wrote like a man possessed, pen flying across paper, ink smearing and words blending together, all to guarantee that his brain would not have enough time to process the word vomit he was producing, and therefore would not find the fault in it. After nearly six minutes of solid scribbling, with his already messing writing gradually becoming illegible, he sat back to admire his work, heart thumping and chest heaving. It was akin to chasing a criminal, something which he had become very familiar with, he could feel the chemical adrenaline slowly wearing off as the ache in his hand began to set in. Sherlock dared not a read his own words, a part of him was considering just folding up the paper and mailing it away, no proof reading, no changing his mind. But he knew he couldn't do that. Not even for John. And after reading his own words, he was very glad that he hadn't.

_John,_

_I understand the motives behind your acceptance and the need for financial support in this time but it's not the same with out you here by my side. The flat seems vacant, Baker Street seems deserted, the whole of Britain seems empty without you. I miss you, and not just in the sense that I miss the time we spend together, I miss your physical being. I can't sleep with the knowledge that you will not be present when I awake, I can't even play my violin, because you were the only one I want to hear it, I cannot properly function without your presence, so please come back to me, come home._

_Sherlock_

"NO. NO. NO," Sherlock practically yelled, the distorted expression on his face growing with each word he read. He could barely even comprehend his own words, where had all this affection come from? Maybe he was ill, a quick deduction of his current physical state determined no known illness he could be diagnosed with. Maybe it was a new disease that attacked the brain and forced out chemical sentiment. He filed away the prospect, vowing to look into it when he had more time.

These feelings certainly was not a hereditary trait, examining the little knowledge of his father and the extensive years of observation of his mother, neither of them ever showed the slightest hint of overzealous sentiment. Even Mycroft the "Ice Man" appeared emotionless, unless this was a recessive gene. Yes! That must be it, a recessive gene which has passed unknowingly through this family to finally be revived in himself which causes unnecessary release of chemicals which inhibit rational thinking and causes over the top affection. Of course that must be it, there was no other logical explanation.

But..

If this was a hereditary trait, why was it only making an appearance now? Was it because his interactions with John had stimulated some chemical releases and then the disorder had taken hold? But as a young child he had felt affection towards his family members, should it not have begun back then?

So that left only one explanation. It was John, it was just John. And maybe.. Just maybe this "sociopath", as he had so desperately labelled himself, had begun to feel for the first time in what felt like a life time. And all because of John.   
This revelation took place in less then ten seconds, the world still turned, everyone continued on and nothing was changed. But everything in Sherlocks world had been flipped upside down and turned back to front. He knew now, he knew what he had to write but he had just never thought about it. Scrambling for a fresh piece of paper he carefully printed out his words, but left the letter on the bench, still with not enough courage to send it.

_I miss you._

* * *

 

**The Next Day**

Sherlock was woken up extremely early the next morning by the unusual amount of sun and also by the sound of someone pounding on his front door. Part of him debated whether or not he should actually arise to see who is what. It obviously was not a client, as strangers are too nervous to enter an unknown environment without invitation. It was not Mycroft as the old goat would just stride in, key in hand even though they had changed the locks six times. Mrs Hudson wouldn't dare make such a noise, even if it was possible for her to do so.

While the steady beating continued Sherlock raised his head and dragged his body across the bed to where his mobile phone was laying on his bed side table. A quick flick showed seven text messages and twelve missed calls from Mycroft, all which he chose to ignore just to spite his older brother, he probably just misplaced his umbrella or something and wanted to annoy him.

Sherlock rose from his bed, trailing the sheet down onto the floor, the loud knocking was starting to get on his nerves and the person responsible for it seemed rather persistent. As he ventured out of his room he heard the distinctive voice of the Detective Inspector.

Sherlock sighed softly, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes to clear away any sleep. With dragging feet and sluggish movements Sherlock unlocked the door and was abruptly faced with an ashen-faced Lestrade.

"Has Mycroft told you?" Lestrade said, his tired eyes flicking across Sherlocks face and then around the apartment.

"Told me what," Sherlock replied through a yawn, but upon seeing the look that briefly flashed over the Detective Inspectors face he tensed up. What was happening? Was it something to do with Moriarty or his criminal web? Had it returned? Was he going to have to pretend to kill himself again? Because last time it was a real pain.

"It's John-“

Sherlock froze as Lestrade kept talking, his mouth moving in slow motion and the words coming out seemingly distorted but one rang out clear as a bell.

_Dead._

John.

_His_ John.

His mind ran black, and then red, and then nothing, just emptiness. He tried to concentrate on the stream of words that were falling from Lestrades mouth, but his ears were not hearing. His vision blurred, but not from tears, and the face in front of him slid in and out of focus while his lips moved silently, trying to make sense of what had happened. He could smell the sadness in the air and taste the salinity of remorse and hopelessness on his tongue. The once solid ground beneath his feet seemed to give way and he felt like he was falling and falling and he didn't want to reach the bottom. Sherlock could vaguely hear Lestrade shouting his name from an arms length away but it barely registered in his numbed brain.

_John._

Finally he broke.

_John._

Sherlock's unstable legs crumpled and he would have fallen to the floor had Lestrade not surged forward to catch him. His empty chest began to tighten and constricted until he was desperately gasping for breath and shuddering with great heaving sobs. Tears fell from his eyes and tracked continuous wet trails down his hollow cheeks until they fell from his chin and soaked in perfect circles down his dressing gown. His throat seemed to swell and though Sherlock coughed and spluttered he could not draw in a breath. A hazy mist appeared in his vision and his ears filled with deafening roaring.

_John._

He felt himself being placed on the ground by kind loving hands, Lestrades violent shaking coming across as nothing more then soft caresses and his screaming registering as the quiestest whisper. Sherlock caught the slight noise of loud footsteps banging up the stair case and the horrific scream of his landlady.

_John._

It seemed like hours had past since he had opened the front door, and Sherlock felt like he had aged a lifetime in that impossibly short space of time. He heard ambulance sirens along Baker Street. He heard Lestrade racing down the steps. He heard Mrs Hudson's sobbing. He heard his own heartbeat in his ears. He heard his own rasping breath.

_John._

So the great Boffin Sherlock Holmes lay on the floor of his apartment, struggling to live all because of one army doctor who could never refuse the offer to serve queen and country. The same army doctor who had died without a single letter, never knowing he had caused someone to feel, never knowing he had caused someone to love. At that moment, Sherlock realised that everything he had ever needed to say was written on the sheets of paper all around him, and everything that was on those pieces of paper could be summed up in a single sentence.

_I love you._

The salinity of remorse on his tongue was replaced with the bitterness of regret.


End file.
